Digital Glastonbury 2014 – Your Ultimate Guide Of What To Watch On Friday

So you didn’t get a ticket. Your mates all did, pissed off to Somerset on Wednesday armed with a small lake’s worth of booze and they’ve been Instagramming every second, the callous bastards. But chin up! You can still have a brilliant Glastonbury from the comfort of your own home, without even the slightest bout of trench-foot. The BBC will be broadcasting more than 250 hours of coverage from Worthy Farm across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four and BBC online over the next three days. Last year was the first time Glasto went fully ‘digital’, streaming sets live online from six of the biggest stages. They’re doing it all again, so you can tune into everything on your laptop or mobile whenever you want. With that in mind, you’re probably thinking, where should I start? That’s frankly an unnavigable labyrinth of choice! Fear not, let us guide you. Here’s our pick of the best sets to tune into on Friday.

Blondie – 12.15, Other Stage
Blondie are in a lot of ways the perfect Glastonbury band – and not just because ‘The Tide Is High’ pretty neatly sums up the flooded conditions that besiege the festival site every single year. Armed with stacks of massive singalong anthems, Debbie Harry and co should provide plenty of thrills from their lunchtime berth on the Other Stage. Listen, just tune in – we called them NME Godlike Geniuses earlier this year for a reason, alright?

Jungle – 13.00, John Peel
The live band of the summer? That’s the early buzz around this West London duo, whose shows are vivid future-pop carnivals full of fiercely danceable grooves and nods to 70s soul. With their debut album around the corner, the pair should cement themselves here at Worthy Farm as the next in record label XL’s long line of great-to-watch critical darlings. Don’t miss.

Haim – 16.45, Other Stage
Haim’s inaugural Glasto outing last year was disrupted by illness, when bassist Este’s diabetes flaired up midway through their Pyramid Stage performance, forcing her briefly off stage. They’ll be hoping for no such hiccups this time around. Today’s show should cap a tremendous debut album campaign: last Glasto, ‘Days Are Gone’ was on the verge of release, the LA trio’s buzz growing. Now their breezy, trilling guitar pop has an international audience. Word is Haim will soon be retreating to Los Angeles for a while to write their second album. They were never going to disappear without a bang.

Lily Allen – 20.00, Pyramid Stage
Lily Allen and her family have done Glastonbury so many times now, Worthy Farm’s basically her second home. It’s in her DNA, or at least in the bottom of her rucksack when she digs it out every June. Which means if there’s anywhere she might be able to inject some life into the somewhat flat songs on her recent comeback, ‘Sheezus’, it’s here. And even if the new material struggles to spark on the Pyramid Stage, she’s still got tonnes of bangers to fall back on: who can resist a cider-fuelled sunset singalong to ‘Alfie’? Not us.

Danny Brown – 20.00, Park Stage
For those looking for slightly more lively and visceral thrills, the wonderfully weird, club-cultured hip-hop of Detroit’s Danny Brown should do just the trick. The ‘Old’ emcee is one of a dwindling number in rap around whom you genuinely feel anything can (and will) happen – a brilliantly unhinged performer, Brown’s renowned for his wild shows. Whatever happens today, one thing’s for sure – Somerset’s unlikely to have seen anything like it before.

Arcade Fire – 22.00, Pyramid Stage
Alright, so if the rain persists, it may be a slightly soggier disco than Win Butler and his pals have been delivering of late on their ‘Reflektor’ world tour, but there’ll be no dampening the party vibes when Arcade Fire stride out onstage at 10pm. Those who witnessed the carnival that was their recent London Earls Court shows will tell you to brace yourself for dazzling retro-futuristic visuals, papier mache heads, hits spanning the Canadian crew’s entire career and maybe even a cover or two. They’ve also promised to bring a Somerset guest. Bring. It. On.

MIA – 22.15, West Holts
Another headliner clash that needn’t be a headache for you at home. Simple, just bang open a couple of tabs. Last year’s ‘Matangi’ proved MIA remains one of UK music’s most fierce and snarling voices – a genre-splicing pop agitator with plenty to say. It’s been over a year since the British-Tamil singer last played the UK by our count, making this the first airing of tracks like ‘Bad Girls’ and ‘YALA’ on British soil – all the more reason to make a date with her set.

Metronomy – 23.00, Park Stage
You lucky lot at home. While we on-site at Glastonbury are tearing our hair out at which headliner to watch, you guys have no such Sophie’s Choice dilemma – you can have it all. Metronomy’s ‘Love Letters’ was made for big festival shows like tonight’s – all blockbuster hooks and warm, hug-your-nearest-stranger emotion. Word of advice to the band on the off-chance they’re reading though – leave the white suits you’ve been recently rocking at home. With Glasto’s mud, that’s a fucking massive dry-cleaning bill waiting to happen.